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Anon says
DH, preschooler and I are all off tomorrow for Juneteenth. I want to get out of the house, but we are in the middle of a heat wave. What are you doing tomorrow?
Anon says
It’s not a holiday where I live, so we’re doing camp and work as normal. But we’re in a heat wave too. Some indoor go-tos when my kid was that age: library, kids’ museum, trampoline park, indoor play place, Target, movie theater (a chain near us has free summer kids movies and people bring babies/toddlers who wouldn’t be ready for a normal movie). And there’s always the pool.
AwayEmily says
We also are all off for Juneteenth and it’s going to be super hot…the 2nd grader is going to an indoor ropes course at the mall with her Girl Scout troop and I’m taking the kindergartener clothes shopping while she’s there. And then in the afternoon I want to snuggle on the couch and watch the new Percy Jackson TV series with them — both kids are reading the book right now and I think it will be really fun.
As for the toddler, she and my husband have big plans to build a boat out of pillows for her and her stuffies and sail it to the playground.
NLD in NYC says
Going to an air conditioned museum. Yay dinosaurs!
SC says
My kid is off tomorrow, but I have to work. DH is a SAHD. I want to encourage them to get out of the house for a while, but the kid is doing all the fun indoor things at his camp, had a busy weekend, and knows we’re leaving town on Saturday for a week. He just wants to be home. They’ll probably end up playing video games around the house while I try to work.
Anon says
The pool or beach?
We’re doing a beach day trip – it’s about a 90 min drive to the beach for us.
Anonymous says
We are going to the beach early in the morning when it’s cooler and less crowded!
Anonymous says
Pool
Mary Moo Cow says
We’re going to a movie and the pool. It’s going to be so, so hot here, too. I think some light meals and maybe a board game or family reading inside after dinner.
New Here says
I have to work, but DH and daughter are off. I’m kicking them out (WFH on Weds) to the children’s museum or an indoor playground (we don’t visit often so its a special treat) for the morning. I’ve blocked my calendar after 3 with hopes of getting out and having a few hours at the pool.
Anon says
We’re probably just going to the pool, because it’s easy, but the other options would the the science or children’s museums. we have memberships to both because they’re great summer activities when you need a day in the AC.
Anon says
I’d imagine museums, movie theaters, etc will be really crowded tomorrow.
Anon says
Do most adults get the day off? I think of it more like Columbus Day/Veteran’s Day/MLK Day where only some people are off vs Memorial Day/Labor Day/July 4th where basically everyone in the US is off. So it might not be too bad.
Anon says
IME, more people are off for Juneteenth than they are for MLK, Presidents, Indigenous Peoples, or Veterans days.
In my area schools have let out but camps haven’t started yet so lots of parents are taking time off too.
Anon says
Huh. Maybe it’s regional. I don’t feel like I know anyone who has Juneteenth off. I’m off for MLK but not Columbus or Veteran’s days. We’re several weeks into summer here, and camps are all operating as normal this week, even though they close for Memorial Day and the 4th of July.
Spirograph says
It is very much an everyone’s-off holiday here in the DMV. It’s a holiday at my company, federal gvt is off, and most day camps I’m familiar with skip that day. YMCA pool has holiday hours and closes at 4, too.
Anon says
any federal related museum will be closed
Anonymous says
Sailing! We live less than an hour from Annapolis, but haven’t ever spent any time there to speak of or been out on the Bay. So we signed up for a little try-out-sailing trip that will be just our family plus one actual experienced sailor for a couple hours. bonus, it should be a bit cooler (but more sun) out on the water.
Baby sleep advice needed says
Looking for suggestions on improving my infant’s sleep: he has one long stretch of sleep each day of ~5-7 hours. But it happens starting at 6 or 7 PM everyday without fail. Then by 1 AM he’s back to waking up every 2 or 3 hours to be fed, which is the frequency he eats all day long too. Any ideas on how to help him shift his long sleep interval back to start at 11 or midnight? We’ve tried to keep him up in the early evening with daylight, fluorescent lights, moving him around, waking him up to eat, etc but nothing seems to be working. Even when we do get him to wake up during that time, it ends up just eliminating that long stretch of sleep for the day, not shifting it. Anyone have any recommendations we might want to try?
AwayEmily says
How old is he? Honestly I don’t think you WANT to move it — 7pm is a great bedtime for a baby, and they are supposed to get their best stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night. Sounds like he is a very smart baby to have already figured this out! I would keep doing what you’re doing, and if/when you are ready, sleep train him.
Anon says
+1 For a baby under 4 months (and for many, up to 6 months) the 2-3 hour wakeups seem really normal and it’s excellent that he’s doing a long stretch like that on his own. I know it’s not super conducive to adult sleep, but it does give you a break in the evenings before your own bed time, which is beneficial in other ways. Many babies have a sleep regression around 4 months, so if he hasn’t hit that yet, I would wait and see how things shake out.
Anon says
I’m not sure… I never really understood the idea that babies need to sleep at a certain time – they can’t read a clock, so clock times seem kind of arbitrary. What matters is time from the last wake up, so if they sleep in and take a late nap, why can’t they have a later bedtime? When our daughter was only doing one ~ 6 hour stretch, we pushed it back to more naturally align with our sleep schedules, so starting around 10 or 11 pm. It worked great and she was and is an amazing sleeper.
OP what is the nap schedule like? If you want your baby to go to sleep at 11 pm they’re likely going to need a nap that ends at 5 pm or later, maybe as late as 7 pm. Also are you having to wake baby for daycare or is he able to sleep in? It worked for us because my husband was home so our baby could sleep until 10 am (with more frequent wakings from ~4 am to 10 am). If baby has to wake up at, say, 7 am for daycare, this may not be doable.
Anonymous says
Babies do need to sleep at a certain time. That certain time is hard-wired and is different for each baby, though, and trying to fight it will just make everyone miserable. I had a night owl who wanted to sleep from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. When I tried putting her to bed earlier no one got any sleep all night. When I let her set the schedule, everyone got a lot more sleep.
Anon2 says
+1 Every one of my kids, at every age from newborn on up, has slept better when put to bed at 10pm or later. Despite the “experts” crowing about earlier bedtimes, early bed for my kids results in a nap and lots of night wakeups. We have three kids and have tried all the things with naps and wake windows. And my current 3yo only sleeps through the night when it’s really hot in his room, lol.
So, some kids are wired in specific ways, and fighting it means less sleep for all. Not to say that’s necessarily the case with OP’s baby, but if he’s sleeping 7 hours straight that is amazing and speaks to a natural internal clock.
GCA says
+1, one of mine was and still is an early bird. If you kept him up late to try and get him to sleep in, all that happened was he got less sleep, was miserable, and then everyone got less sleep. And that’s how my biphasic sleep schedule evolved – when we put him to bed, I would often take a long nap that was my best sleep of the night.
anon says
This seems pretty normal to me. When my kid was <6months, I basically went to bed as soon as he did. Husband and I also took shifts so someone could get at least 4 hour stretch of sleep each night and then on and off with the baby. So someone would be off baby duty from 8-1, then handle wakeups while the other person got to sleep from 1-6 uninterrupted.
Anonymous says
This is what we did. I pumped right after baby fell asleep (even if baby just fed). DH did a BM or formula feed on first waking then went to bed. So baby slept 6/7 to 11/12 and I often slept 8-2/3 (feed and then try to sleep again), DH slept 11-12 until 6/7. I’d be busting when I woke at 2/3 so I pumped off whatever baby didn’t eat and DH fed baby at 6/7 (or I nursed again if I was up).
Anonymous says
This is a normal sleep pattern for under 6 months old. You should stop messing with it and appreciate that you have a good sleeper.
Baby sleep advice needed - OP says
Thanks all! This is our second child and I guess we didn’t realize how lucky we were with our first. The baby is waking up our toddler multiple times a night (despite sound machine, etc) which is honestly probably part of what makes this so exhausting. Sounds like we just need to keep our fingers crossed for this to improve with time.
Anon says
try to put an extra sound machine in the hallway to help muffle the noise for your toddler. hope you get some sleep soon!
Anonymous says
Is the crib in your room? We had a crib in the nursery and a crib in our room. Biggest first stretch of sleep baby was in nursery and then in our room overnight to minimize waking for toddler. Whichever parent was ‘off’ slept with eye mask and earplugs.
Anonymous says
Echoing the other commenters here, I think I would focus on eliminating the night feedings rather than shifting the bedtime much later. I might also try to experiment with afternoon naps so that you can get baby to at least 7 or 7:30.
Anon says
With our twins we had some luck with waking them up to eat at 8:30/9:00, which seemed to reset their clock and they’d sleep 6 hours after that. (Otherwise they’d sleep 6-midnight and then be up at 3am and 6am, similar to what your baby is doing.) Our current infant is only 7 weeks, so haven’t yet tested if this will work again, but he also does a 5-6 hour stretch at the begining of the night.
CCLA says
What worked for us was getting the babies on a schedule/routine – not just focusing on early evening, but from the early morning on to set the stage for the entire day’s rhythm. I liked the Moms on Call schedule (not endorsing the rest of the book – it had religious leanings that were not for me, but we lived by the schedule). The idea is getting them on a regular cadence of feedings and wake times, and I especially loved the “Crazy Day” concept of “here is what is most important to stick to even if the rest of the day has gone off the rails”. Will vary by age of course, but I’d definitely suggest trying something routinized throughout the whole day. FWIW I didn’t start this with my older kiddo until about 6 weeks and it took her about 2 weeks to really get the hang of the schedule. Good luck!
anon says
Tips for a trip to Disneyland? I just bought tickets for our family of four (kids are 6 and 9). We’re traveling from the east coast to see my parents, who live really close to Disney. So, we will be doing a day trip to the main park. I have been before, as recently as 20 years ago, ha! and I know that the systems have changed. Ive tried to research planning a trip to disney online, but its…overwhelming! My family and I are up for a fun time, but are not super into all things disney. I am super annoyed at how much the tickets cost, so I dont want to spend all day waiting in lines for attractions and food. We’re going next week, is that too late to plan? I think i am supposed to get an app? Help!!
Anon says
Others will have more specific tips about the new system since I haven’t been recently enough to comment, but my advice about the cost is just embrace it and have fun. It’s insanely expensive and that annoys me as well, but on the day of, just get into the spirit and make it the best day you can. We found that to be so rewarding the last time we were there in 2019 and it made lines easier to deal with.
Anonymous says
Here’s a good 1-day itinerary: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/1-day-disneyland-plan/ Note that you definitely don’t have to cram in all the attractions listed, but it’s a good general plan for which “lands” to head to in which order.
Anonymous says
Disneyland pass holder. I think this plan is VERY ambitious for summer without Genie+, but it does have some good tips. The dining reservations for the sit-down restaurants named will all be taken, and the walk-up line is iffy. But the counter-service rec’s are good.
OP, please remember that you’re going to a theme park. You are going to spend the day waiting in lines for attractions or food or staking out a spot for a parade/fireworks. It just is what it is. The key is to maximize that time, which you can do by #1, familiarizing yourself with the Disneyland app (it’s not always intuitive, but you can tool around on it without being in the park); and #2, planning to pay for Genie+, assuming your kids want to do the “big” rides. It’s sometimes cheaper in advance, but it’ll be $25-35 per person. If your kids don’t want to do Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, etc. then it’s not worth it for the “kid” rides only. But on a one-day, not soon repeated trip, it is necessary.
My top tip for anyone who cares about seeing a parade but doesn’t want to lose an hour sitting on the curb is to buy the Plaza Inn dining package. You eat lunch there and then have access to a reserved area for the SECOND parade.
CCLA says
I’ve been a few times in the last year, and there are definitely planners you can engage for free but I prefer to be in charge lol. Here are some tips, forgive the length as this is stream of consciousness:
-Add Genie+ to your reservations. You’ll still wait in many lines, but this will make it easier. As of last time we went a few months ago, it only works once for each ride, and you cannot make another reservation until you’ve redeemed the current one, so if you make a res for 2 hours hence at a ride, keep in mind you’re SOL for any other reservations until then other than ones that are single use reservations (Cars in DCA and Rise of the Resistance in Disneyland I believe).
-Familiarize yourself with the map ahead of time and make a general plan for must-sees (maybe 1-2 per person), but be flexible – rides go down, etc. I like to make sure we hit a must-do for everyone and then go with the flow. Sometimes that means the kids want to sit down with ice cream for 30 minutes – remember that rushing around like a crazy person won’t always lead to more joy (if this is a once-in-many-years trip, some rushing can be warranted, and a plan of some sort is important to hit your must-dos, but don’t lose sight of the joy in the small moments that may not be in the itinerary!).
-Dining can take forever, if you are open to paying for a sit down meal, find the dining reservations page and keep it open in a tab on your phone. Beware to filter for within the park where you are. Likely nothing will be available right now, and with parties of 6+ it can be harder to snag a res, but for 4-5 people I’ve always been able to grab last-minute reservations either day-of or day before when people inevitably cancel, and it’s really nice to get out of the crowds for a beat. River Belle Terrace often has res availability, and is not anything amazing but is quick service and has often been faster than walk up counters.
-I like to do park hopper to have flexibility, but that means you definitely will miss some things in both parks if you only have one day
Fallen says
We just went! I highly recommend buying the 2024 Disney book (I can’t remember the name but it’s the one by the same people as the touring plans app – which I also recommend), doing Genie+, and hitting the most popular or 2nd most popular app. If you give me a burner email, I can send you our itineary. Also recommend getting there at open time (or 30 minutes before if you are staying in a Disney resort). If you haven’t made reservations by now, I wouldn’t bother since the food is awful.. I would just read in the book the best options for quick service for lunch and eat a late dinner outside the park (Highflying recommend all the popular restaurants in Disney springs – boathouse, the famous Asian chef one that serves sushi/pecking duck, the wine bar there with excellent tapas.. can’t remember the names). Do not miss guardians of the galaxy or the TRON or avatar rides – best ones!
Anonymous says
We went in December with my 4YO and 9YO. Some various tips:
-Food wise, we only did order ahead and pickup while there. Standouts were the places Star Wars (really tasty food and super creative/on theme…I’m still dreaming about the “Kashyyk” chocolate cake) and the Asian food court in California Adventure
-For a one day , would recommend sticking to either DL or CA. We had park hopper for our last day of 3 day stay.
-Star Wars area was seriously amazing / super immersive and can’t miss if anyone in your family is even a minor fan.
An.On. says
What age do you transition your kid out of a traditional crib, if they’ve shown no signs of climbing out or wanting a big kid bed, and they still fit in there, length-wise?
We have the kind that converts to a toddler bed, so we could do that as an intermediary step, but does it make sense to do it preemptively? Our kid almost certainly could climb out and I’d be worried about them injuring themselves doing so but they haven’t even tried as far as I know.
Cerulean says
I vote to not rock the boat and keep them in the crib as long as possible! Our 2.5 year old busted out of her crib at a little over two years old, and it’s been a really rocky transition. We ended up doing a floor bed on a full sized mattress because she needs someone to lay with her to get to sleep. When she was in her crib, we had an awesome, easy bedtime routine and could lay her down after a few stories and songs, but now without her crib I think the freedom of an open space now keeps her from settling as quickly.
Anon says
A little off-topic, but I’ll be honest that this whole concept of kids “needing their parents to lay down with them” scares me. I’m pregnant with my first and honestly pretty worried about the lack of sleep. My friend is doing the same thing with her kid and she also calls it a “need.” We all have our things we get freaked out by and that’s one of mine – the ever-lengthening bedtime and “needs” that the parents have to fulfill.
Anon says
Also, I should be more clear that I don’t mean that as any kind of criticism of your parenting. It’s literally just an irrational fear of mine.
Cerulean says
I was you, especially because I already had periods of bad insomnia pre-kid and didn’t want to compound it with lots of wake-ups and sleep issues. I thought I’d be able to avoid laying down with my kid with various sleep techniques, but my kid’s transition to a bed coincided with a slight fear of the dark, so here we are. It’s really not the end of the world. We had about 2.5 months of absolutely having to lay down with her to fall asleep, but we are now at a point where we can leave her when she’s sleepy, but not fully asleep, about 80% of the time.
I think whether your kid will struggle with this or not is the luck of the draw. Pretty much anyone I know who has a few kids has at least one bad sleeper (and often, one good one). You can and should work toward better sleep hygiene and habits, but some kids just need extra support to get there.
Like many things with parenting, you just do what you gotta do. My mantra is that almost no phase in parenting lasts, whether good or bad. Save what you can enjoy and grit your teeth through what you can’t.
Cerulean says
And I’ll also add that if this does happen to you, be sure make a plan and work to help get your kid to where you want and need them to be with sleeping. Like, we aren’t just saying, “well I guess we’ll lay down with her to sleep forever!”. The past month, we’ve been talking with her about falling asleep by herself in her bed and choosing books that have characters that are in bed on their own. We tell her the plan as we settle into bed for stories, and she’s made pretty good progress. When she falls asleep on her own, we make sure to tell her how awesome it is that she did that in the morning.
Roughly one night per week she gets extra clingy and upset (she’s a velcro kid in general), so we stick around a bit longer for her to fall asleep and then try again the next night.
Anon says
And when you do this, how do you have time to spend quality time with DH, or clean up the kitchen after dinner, or fit in a quick workout? I get into bed between 9-9:30 to be asleep by 9:30-10.
On the off chance that I don’t fall asleep in the bed with the kid, I just don’t see how I get other things done in my night!
I can see doing it on occasion if kid is sick, scared, or sad but every night?! It seems impossible
AwayEmily says
I was always an excellent sleeper as a kid, and then in third grade developed an absolute terror of falling asleep alone at night. My mom was never the most affectionate or “feelings-y” parent, but she took me seriously, and stayed in my room with me til I fell asleep for six solid months, until the phase passed.
I just wanted to say that I STILL remember that feeling of absolute comfort and safety I felt knowing that my mom was there with me. And I try to remember that when my kids are having a tough night and need some extra help — sounds like you are doing the exact same thing.
I guess I’m trying to say that there’s a middle ground between being super strict and super lenient and most parents can figure this out. I could always tell when my 4yo was legitimately anxious and needed my help to fall asleep, and when he needed me to firmly escort him back to bed despite his whining and tears.
Cerulean says
It takes an extra half hour for us to lay down with her, we aren’t staying in there until it’s time for us to go to sleep. So instead of leaving her room at 7:30, it’s 8. Yes, it cuts down on free time, but it’s not the whole night!
And this might not ever be you, so don’t worry in advance! There were many issues in parenting that you hear or read about that I’ve never had to contend with. Kids are a mixed bag.
Anon says
Um it’s not irrational. You are definitely facing a lack of sleep. But you will adjust. It just happens because it has to. Sometimes lying down with them is the easiest thing, but everything’s a phase and nothing is forever.
Anon says
I guess what I mean is that it seems like one thing to help support an infant through their sleep needs because obviously they are not developmentally ready to sleep the way an older kid can – that phase makes complete sense to me and doesn’t scare me. But when I see my friend’s almost four-year-old who absolutely can or will not go to sleep independently and the scope just keeps expanding (first it was needing a parent to lie down, next it was needing a parent all night), it just freaks me out. When does a phase become a permanent routine? I guess I’ve been banking on the idea that eventually the kid will sleep on his own and will be able to get a little more sleep and time in the evenings after the infant years and it’s hard to think that that could be in jeopardy. I know every kid is different and we’ll just figure it out, but still.
Anon says
Sometimes phases continue because making the change is hard. In the short term, night weaning, sleep training, etc. often means a week of exceedingly difficult nights, though there are long term benefits.
That said, there are genuine attachment/comfort needs, and for each kid they are different and last a different span of time. I’ve found that between age 3-4 my kids are more rational and we can teach them to fall asleep in their own beds. Usually this looks like cuddling a few minutes, then saying we need to do something and will come back to check them in 2, 5, 10 min for several nights until they are used to falling asleep on their own.
And even once they did fall asleep on their own, they were both up many times a week, but we would walk them to their own bed and go back to ours. Around age 6 that lessened for us.
As a counter point, my sister could put all her kids in the crib awake for naps and bed by 12 months. Sometimes they lie awake for hours but stay quiet and eventually fall asleep. Nature vs nurture, who knows.
Anon says
to the Anon at 10:04, this might also be because your friend has chosen not to set boundaries or that this works ok for her life. that doesn’t mean it has to be what you decide to do for your life or with your kid. we actually never sat in our kids’ room until they fell asleep until they started K and i think it was bc they see us for less time during the day and want to feel close to us and i sit on the floor and stretch or scroll my phone for like 15-20 min while my kids fall asleep. but for the first 3 years of their life i generally said good night, and walked out the door. around age 3 DH started this thing where he would sit in their room for 2 songs, bc he was going through a stretch of getting home from work later and wanted to see the kids, and sometimes on trips or unfamiliar places we sit in their room for longer, but that is also bc sometimes sitting in their room is easier than the alternative.
anon says
I get it, because I had these fears when I was pregnant. On the one hand, it is a fact that infants and young children have vast needs – I found that these were very scary in the abstract, but not in practice. It is the case, however, that young babies do not sleep for long stretches (for the most part) and interrupted sleep is a fact of life for most new parents. There are things you can do to help with it (snoo, a formula bottle at bedtime since it takes longer to digest, partner doing some overnight feedings, a night nurse) but it is a tough period for most people.
When it comes to kids needing a parent to fall asleep: mine do not. While nothing is 100%, sleep is heavily habit-driven for older babies/toddlers/kids, and you can do things to facilitate independent sleep. My husband and his ex-wife got into the habit of staying in bed with my stepkids until they fell asleep – my stepdaughter is 13 and has only been able to fall asleep alone for about 2 years. My stepson is 11 and it’s only been about 6 months, and that has made it impossible for him to enjoy sleepaway camp or even sleepovers.
Given that experience and how hard it has been for them, I was very focused on having our younger children be able to fall asleep independently. We used a snoo, did full extinction (cry it out) sleep training, and have a very established bedtime routine for our younger kids. We read books and say prayers, and then they fall asleep alone.
Some of it is child dependent (and in the young baby days, it is almost entirely driven by the child), but parental choices about bedtime do play a role and you absolutely can get to a place where your kid does not need an adult to fall asleep.
Cerulean says
I was super duper focused on sleep habits and routines too, and those techniques worked really well from around 5 months to two years old and then… whew!
Anon says
This is why people sleep train and have such strong opinions about all of this. It does change throughout their phases… my 4-yo is harder to “put to sleep” now than as an infant, but I still don’t entertain a long bedtime process. But some people are ok with staying with the child until she falls asleep. This will be the first of many mom decisions you will have to evaluate and figure out what works not just for your baby but also for YOU!
Anon says
How do you extricate yourself from a child who wants a long bedtime process? It seems so challenging!
Anon says
Re: how do you extricate yourself, I think it also may depend on how willing you are to have a child in your bed. Our daughter had a tough phase around 3.5 where she would wake up in the middle of the night and cry out for us until we went into her room. It’s possible we could have spent hours in her room trying to persuade her to sleep in there by herself, but it would have cost all of us a ton of sleep, so we just brought her into our bed and we all went right back to sleep immediately. It was not ideal but both DH & I felt like having her in our bed was a small price to pay for a decent night’s sleep. She outgrew the phase, which I assume was something related to separation anxiety, and returned to her own bed within a few months.
Anon says
potty, brush teeth, 3 books, a snuggle… keep them on task and moving from step to step, OR on batsh*t nights just make sure they have a pullup on, close the door and wish them luck. It’s not for everyone but if you are ok with the idea of CIO sleep training and the room is safe, then you can get out of there without waiting for them to be actually asleep. Plus, in the end, you can’t actually MAKE them fall asleep. They can do whatever in their room but more often than not, sticking to the routine means they do eventually go to sleep in bed. This was applicable advice for initial sleep training, for the crib transition, and still comes up from time to time as they get older.
Anonymous says
I think it’s possible to set boundaries around sleep, it’s also possible for reasonable boundaries to include some contact sleeping, and it’s also possible for a lot of parents to actively decide to have sleep be more of a free-for-all because they feel they get more sleep that way themselves. All of those options can work for different families at different times and ages. My now-4-year old was a great independent sleeper from 6 to 18 months, but at that point we did start laying down/reading until he falls sleep. We like doing that just as much as he does – it’s a really nice connection moment at the end of the day. (I should say that I’m not sure if he actually “needs” it or it’s just our routine, but that is what we do.) He’s also occasionally gone through phases of pushing to expand it beyond that, and we’ve set limits around those. I do have friends who are cool with their kids coming into their beds every night, and while I don’t want to do that for various reasons, I totally get why it works for them. Also, kids go through phases, and you can decide whether to wait them out or try different strategies – my son has had occasional random crappy sleep phases like I think most kids do, and sometimes he just outgrew them in a couple of weeks and sometimes we made some changes and that helped.
Anon says
Thanks everyone for the responses to this little TJ of mine. I’m really appreciating reading them.
Anon says
I was concerned about sleep during pregnancy so I read a lot to prepare and started thinking about sleep habits from the hospital! (All you can do then is focus on establishing good feeding patterns but the good eating patterns set the stage for the sleeping patterns and a hungry baby can’t sleep.) My daughter ended up a great sleeper and was sleeping through the night at 2 months. So I’d say harness the anxiety into some action that’s positive – for me it was reading and learning – even if outcomes aren’t guaranteed. And although DD was a great sleeper as an infant and little kid, around age 5, she developed nightmares (normal for that age) plus we were doing a lot of reading together in the early elementary years, so we ended up being in her bed much more during the elementary school years. There are phases. And yes you change your life patterns. DH and I almost never have sex in the evening anymore but we found other times that work and are happy.
NLD in NYC says
If they haven’t tried climbing out, let it be. We converted the crib to a toddler bed around 2.5 once he made his great escape and fitted it with a toddler rail. Switched to twin bed when he turned 4. You can also try a crib tent if you’re concerned, but eventually they learn how to escape that too.
SC says
I’d let my kid stay in the crib until at least 4 if they showed no signs of climbing out. Seriously. Like Cerulean, mine started climbing out at 2.5, and it was a really rough transition.
Anonymous says
My oldest was probably very close to four before we moved him out of his crib. My twins are three and we just got them their own twin beds a couple weeks ago. Twin bedtime is a battle right now, but that’s to be expected. If your kid is sleeping well, I’d leave it alone. With my oldest we moved; with the twins I just kind of knew it was time. I don’t really know how to explain it, sorry.
Anon says
We converted it at 2.5 even though she showed no sign of climbing out. I think there may have been a height limit she hit (I have a very tall kid).
Fwiw if they’re not interested in climbing out, the conversion may not be a big deal. I was worried about it but it was a non-event because she still waited to stay in bed and have us come get her in the morning (still does, actually, at age 6!)
anon says
we are in the camp of “the earlier the better” and our kids were in twin beds by 18 months at the latest. We avoided lots of bedtime struggles and transition issues that way.
Anon says
I’m intrigued by this. Could you provide more detail about what kind of issues you think you avoided?
anon says
So we are Montessori people (heavy on independence and freedom of movement). Babies slept in a crib side-cared to our bed for the first 12-ish months (i.e. open on one side so they could always get out). They fall asleep themselves at night and for naps (but are handy to nurse overnight without really waking up). Then we move them to a floor bed (twin mattress on a low frame on the floor) in their own room for the next 12-ish months, and then put the bed up on a regular bed frame around 2 – 2 ½. Since it is always *possible* for them to get out of bed, it is never a new thing/new boundary they have to test. They always have the option to get out of bed and in my experience, they just never really did except to go potty (we also potty train young so it is nice that they can get themselves out of bed to use the potty overnight prior to age 2). It’s a “start as you mean to go on” thing – if the end goal is for them to sleep in a regular bed, we scaffold towards that goal as soon as possible so that we don’t teach them the “wrong” way to do it and have to do a big switch.
Anon says
as someone who did not do this, moving from a crib to a bed was not a big transition for us. just like most things with kids, every kid is different!
Anon says
Same, I posted above but the crib –> toddler bed (at age 2.5) and toddler bed –> twin bed (at age 3.5?ish) moves were both total non-events for us, and we did zero “scaffolding” or prep towards the end goal. I strongly believe most things come down to kid personality and what you do matters less than you think it does.
Anon says
Agreed, I totally expected my twins to wreak havoc at bedtime when not in cribs and yet they never got out of their beds until we came in in the morning to say it was time to get up. And they were by no means easily biddable toddlers, this was just a boundary they never pushed.
Anon says
We also switched our kids very early because they all climbed out by 18 months, but we still had all the issues! By contrast, my sister waited until much, much later and her kids have slept through the night from 9 months and never looked back. If a kid has a strong independent streak (“spicy”, if you will) the bed doesn’t make much difference.
Anonymous says
We had the opposite experience – cribs until age 3.5 then toddler bed until age 4 when they ‘earn’ the big kid bed by staying in bed. We’re a non-CIO family so had babies in parent room until age 1, then crib in their own room from 1 (ish) onwards. No issues with kids getting out of bed etc at night. They got pretty attached to their cribs, like wanted us to take pictures of their last night etc.
Most of our friends who went to toddler or floor beds early ended up having to take a lot of stuff out of the bedrooms because the toddlers were getting up and pulling toys and books and clothes out.
busybee says
We transitioned at 2.5 and it was a very rocky transition that took about a month. It’s all good now but it was a rough month and in hindsight I would have kept her in the crib longer.
Re: the worry below about a child needing someone laying in bed with them. I regularly do bedtime solo with 3 under 3, so laying in anyone’s bed is simply not an option. I really just never presented it as an option and when my daughter was upset during the toddler bed transition, I patted her back until she was calm but never stayed. My twins have zero “bedtime routine” other than diapers, sleep sack, in the crib, white noise machine on. Takes about two minutes. I hear of elaborate bedtime routines but they’re certainly not a necessity.
Anonymous says
My 3.75yo just asked last night to convert the crib to a toddler bed. Has tried to climb in, but has never tried to climb out.
Anon says
for my twins we converted the crib to a toddler bed at age 4 (we had the pieces for the transition)….then at age 5.25 we got them twin beds as they were starting kindergarten/were really getting too tall for the length
anon says
on the TJ about being worried about the expanding bedtime… there were seasons of our lives where we (parents and children both) needed to have a predictable, structured routine that took 30 minutes to parents out the door. There have also been seasons where what *I* really needed (at that point as a parent) was a very long bedtime with tickles, wrestling and snuggling, chatting about our days, reading together for a long time, singing songs, and falling asleep in bed with my sweaty toddler breathing on me. That felt much more critical to me than cleaning up dinner, exercise or working after bedtime, in a way I could not have predicted before I had kids.
When we were in a temporary season of long bedtime routines, my brother, who has always been on team *30 minute bedtime*, thought that we just didn’t know how to parent properly or that our children were excessively needy, when what was really happening was that I was making a choice to spend more time with my kids at bedtime because I wasn’t seeing them at other times as much, and really enjoyed getting to lay by them and sleep near them. We’re back to 30 minute bedtimes now.
Anonymous says
Amen. While we had a season of looooong bedtimes that at that time of my parenting life I found challenging, I’m still – kid is 9- reading and snuggling at bedtime and a good part of the why is I currently enjoy the time with him. When he was 5, it was Covid, and he was having trouble sleeping I don’t think I would have predicted that now I’m worrying about the day he stops wanting me to snuggle!
Another thing to think about- as kids get older they have later bedtimes and even if you aren’t lying down with your 9 year old, you may still be one of the many families who is still putting a 9, 10, 11, 12 year old to bed in some fashion and that’s not likely to be earlier than 8:30-9:30 at some point. Ours currently is asleep by 8:30 but I imagine that will be getting later soon.
Anon says
At what age are kids generally allowed to go to a nearby playground without supervision? I have a baby, so that’s so not on my radar yet but we are looking at houses in the suburbs. We really value walkability, and with that comes smaller yards. That’s a trade off I’m happy to make – the yards in houses were looking at aren’t tiny but I could definitely see kids outgrowing them – there’s room for a swing set or to have a catch but not both. But, the area we’re looking in is both very walkable (only a few blocks from school, parks, ball fields) and very, very safe (it’s Haddonfield NJ if anyone is familiar).
Anon says
Age 5-6 in my Midwest neighborhood.
Anon says
Really? I’m also in the midwest, but have never seen kids this young at the park unsupervised. I would love this but it isn’t the reality where we live at all. To be honest, the only kids I see unsupervised at the park are teenagers.
anon says
in our Midwestern neighborhood we did 5-6 with a similarly-aged buddy (so kindergarten age) and 7+ by themselves/with a younger sibling.
anon says
I should add that this is to small, quiet, local parks where we know many of the neighbors around the parks. For the bigger, busier parks a little further away (1/2 mile or more) I let my 9 year old go with a buddy.
Anonymous says
I would take a tiny yard in a walkable neighborhood with a good school over a big yard with no access to amenities. I’m pretty free range: my oldest (7) bikes the neighborhood. I still don’t let him go to the park behind our house (literally .1 miles away) without me or DH. There are a few reasons for this: 1) there are often adults and teenagers there playing basketball. Most of them are perfectly nice and friendly. But I feel like I need to be there to supervise, if only to say “we don’t use those kinds of words in our house.” 2) there are almost always friends at the park and frankly I don’t trust a group of 7 year old boys not to get into trouble. They’ve found snakes, dug mud pits, etc all under my supervision but still. I’m not at all worried about them being abducted (something I was convinced as a child would definitely happen to me) – I’m worried about them having a contest to see who can jump off the swingset and break their arm. FWIW we have a huge yard with a pool (Texas suburbs). And where do my kids want to be? Anywhere but their own yard.
Anon says
+1 It also depends on your neighbors and how busy-body/call the authorities they are. Once I sent my 6yo to the playground in back of church for the last 15 min of a meeting I was sitting through inside, and when I came out a woman was swinging next to him and chatting. “Harmless”, I suppose, but it gave me a really weird feeling and then I got an earful about kids being unsupervised.
I probably wouldn’t let my kid go to a local park alone until age 8, also because I want them to have the capacity to make good decisions if there’s an injury, etc, unless the community is such that it watches out for each other and knows all the local kids.
I’m also fairly free range and let my kids bike a mile away and back, run into a store for a quick errand, etc.
Anonymous says
I have a five year old in this kind of neighborhood and would not send him alone to the playground, but I’m fine with sitting on a bench and reading while he plays. I’ve seen packs of older elementary kids (maybe 9-10) without a grown-up at the playground, so that’s probably an OK age.
AIMS says
I think some of this is kid specific. My 6 year old knows how to get home from everywhere we regularly go. My 8 year old will point at the river when I say which was is Central Park (it’s not in the river!)
Anonymous says
I was so hopeful we would do this around age 6-7, but what I hadn’t thought about are major street crossings. We have a great playground a few blocks away but there are a lot of crashes at our corner (this is a normal residential street with a 30 mph limit but people speed) and no one in the neighborhood lets kids under 11 cross this street.
Also think about how crowded the park is. Our nearest park was recently redone and is a magnet for the whole city – often 100-200 people at the playground and for a 5 year old that isn’t something I’m that comfortable with.
We have let the kids 9 and 5 go to other neighborhood parks together/with friends when the park is closer to the friend’s house, less crowded etc.
I try to have them practice going around the neighborhood alone starting age 5- my pandemic kindergartener had a lot of anxiety about this but current kindergartener less so. I have them run short errands (drop something off at my friend’s house, go check the Littke Free Library, go see if classmate can play etc).
GCA says
This is good advice. With no major street crossings, I trust my 9yo to bike round the nearby large park / bike to the playground there with his 5th grader neighbor-kid friend, so a radius of about half a mile (well, more, because they’re on bikes, but they never leave the park). Kindergartner walks down the street by herself to see if neighbors are around to play – it would be the same as walking to the school bus stop, about 0.1-0.2 mile. But in the other direction, between our house and school there is one major street crossing, so if 9yo is biking to school with friends, we always see him across that one before turning him loose.
Anonymous says
I live in a family-friendly neighborhood in a top 5 city. Here I see kids unsupervised and just hanging out starting in middle school, for the most part. Though I also see older elementary kids walking or biking themselves to school/ camp.
We previously lived in a small city that happened to have a kind of mini playground every few blocks. They functioned almost like backyards, and I’d see kids as young as kindergarten unsupervised, because they were usually within hollering distance of their apartment.
Anon says
Those mini playgrounds sound awesome! What an ideal setup
Anon says
Those mini playgrounds sound awesome! What an ideal setup
Anon says
this is a great town! we are in a diff part of the country and i was happy to do that tradeoff, but DH was not, so we live in a house with a larger yard , but like many things i think it depends on the kid, if they are going alone or with a buddy, are they walking to meet another adult there, etc. i have 6 year old twins, and one would be petrified of the idea of walking to a park alone, while the other would probably get lost on the way. we have a swing set in our backyard and they sometimes go out alone, but often want a grownup out there with them (even though we are totally fine with them being out there alone).
Anonymous says
9 or 10 in our neighborhood. It depends on how responsible the kids are, how close you are to a major road, how safe the route to the playground is, how nosy your neighbors are, and how old your kid looks. Mine looks young for her age and I have had problems with nosy parents assuming she is 2-3 years younger than she actually is.
A says
8-10 in our town.
Anonymous says
I think it depends on how aggressive CPS is in your state. 8 seems perfectly reasonable to me, but I live in a DC suburb where parents were aggressively investigated for doing just this. CPS in Maryland is very aggressive so we’re pretty careful about what we do as parents.
Anon says
This is so sad. Ugh.
Spirograph says
I was good with my 2nd and 3rd graders doing that this spring…they have friends who live near the playground, and would ride their bikes the couple blocks over to meet them and then play on the playground or in the woods near it. We’re in a fairly dense neighborhood of single family homes and the the playground is tucked at the back of it with no main/busy streets between our house and there.
(I do NOT let them go to the playground on the other side of the busy street without an adult, because the sightlines by the crosswalk aren’t great and people sometimes drive way too fast trying to make a light.)
Anon says
We converted DS’ crib to a toddler bed when he started nighttime potty training at 3.5. In theory he should be able to get out of bed and go to the potty himself, but he still cries out for one of us to take him.
govtattymom says
WFH tips? I posted previously but neglected to mention that coworking space is not an option due to office policy/privacy issues. I definitely enjoy the flexibility of no commute etc. but I’m feeling a bit down at times. My job is not very collaborative to begin with so it’s a bit isolating. Any general suggestions for staying upbeat and maintaining friendships are appreciated!!!
SC says
– I almost always turn the video on in Zoom/Teams meetings, and most people follow my lead. I know not everyone likes being on video, but I do think it’s less isolating to see your coworkers’ actual faces from time to time.
– When I first started working from home, I made it a practice to schedule lunch with a friend, former coworker, or someone else in my network once per week. I’ve gotten out of the habit, but I want to get back into it!
– Light exercise outdoors helps with my mental health. I love a good morning or lunchtime walk. I went days without going outside last week during a huge project, and it was not great.
– I try to start work early enough that I can stop around 5 or 5:30. That might be 7 or 7:30. But especially with not having a commute, it helps to stop around 5 or 5:30 and have the entire evening with my family.
Anon says
Do you mean maintaining friendships at the office? I find WFH much more conducive to friendship (I can invite a neighbor mom to join me on a mid-day walk, and being at school pickup & dropoff every day has helped me meet a lot of people at school), but I’ve never had friendships through work.
Anon says
I work at home and in the office on an as needed basis. In general I move around a lot less when I WFH than on days I’m in the office. For my overall mood, it makes a huge difference if I block out time for a workout and get my heart rate elevated on those days. Kudos if you’re already doing that. Just something I have to remind myself if I’m feeling down and I need to improve my mood.
Anon says
+1 I gained a ton of weight when I started working from home. I think it was a combination of moving my body a lot less and having snacks nearby at all times.
Anon says
I work a few hours and then go to the gym or work out, and it is a huge mood booster. Dropping off my kids at school in the morning is also a nice way to connect with other people and feel more positive. I’m intentional about joining other groups to have a community outside of work. For me, that’s mostly church related.
anon says
Do you do any summer solstice/midsummer celebrations with your kiddos? We have always built a bonfire on midsummer eve – would love to hear about other traditions/activities!
Bean74 says
I love the idea of a bonfire that night!
We get ice cream for dinner for the spring equinox, the summer solstice, and the night before the autumn equinox.
AIMS says
For the solstice, we usually go to the playground with pizza and dinner snacks, invite some other families to meet, let the kids run around and have some wine.
But one of my favorite summer things when my kids were really small was to let them stay up late one evening and take them to see lightening bugs in the park. They were so so so delighted.
Window Treatments says
Sort of a niche question:
I want to get new window treatments for my kids’ rooms. Do I get sheer roman blinds and blackout curtains/drapes? Or blackout blinds with normal curtains/drapes? I do like the option of the privacy that sheer blinds provide (e.g., can keep down during the day but still let light in). Suggestions?
Anon says
I recently purchased blackout roman blinds for my kid’s rooms, I did not factor in the amount of light the south facing windows would have on the edges of the blinds. So depending on how much black out you’re shooting for, I would say that’s one pro to the sheer blinds w/ blackout drape route.
Anon says
+1. We have normal / sheer roman shades and blackout curtains in our kids’ south facing bedrooms, and it works well.
AIMS says
We have blackout shades and regular curtains. I think if you want sheer blinds and black out option, you can do a double blind that will give you both. IME, blackout curtains alone won’t do the trick without good blinds underneath (doesn’t have to be blackout but not sheer) and I personally don’t like the look of them open if you’re trying to let in light unless you have a lot of space around your window to position them outside the window frame.
Anonymous says
If you want to block out all light, get blackout curtains and put them on return rods to prevent light from getting in around the sides.
I really like the idea of interior shutters (what used to be called “plantation shutters”) because they are neater than curtains and don’t let light in around the sides, but our bedrooms are too small to keep furniture far enough from the window for the shutters to open. I don’t know whether light would come in between the slats, but our wide composite blinds do a good job of blocking light between the slats.
Cerulean says
Blackout blinds that are mounted inside the window frame (if possible) block more light that blackout curtains, which will leak light on the top and the sides, although you can prevent the sides from leaking light with a return rod. Measure carefully. We got roller shades from blinds dot com and are very happy with them.
DLC says
We have cellular shades that are blackout on the bottom and light filtering on the top so you can pull them down for light filtering and up for the blackout and then open them all the way if you want. I got them on Wayfair and installed them myself. I don’t have curtains/drapes- they tend to make our space look cluttered.
Fallen says
Looking for bike recommendations for my (very tall, 5 1) 11 year old. She outgrew hers.
Anon says
What kind of bike? How tall are you and your spouse?
Anon2 says
Do you have a local bike store? Go there, they’ll size her up and probably let her test ride a couple. Get whatever brand they have. We’ve done this starting with 20” bikes; my 8yo just got a 28” and it will last him a very long time.
Anonymous says
I’m 5’3” and got mine from Bikesdirect (dot com) during the pandemic. I’m very happy with it. You do have to assemble it yourself. I see a lot of neighborhood kids on woom and REI bikes.
Cb says
No specific recs but resist the temptation to buy a bike she can grow into. It’s safer and much more comfortable to have a bike the right size, and you can always sell it.
I also really like a stepthrough bike, they are harder to find in non-fashion bike styles, but it’s so much more flexible for whatever I’m wearing.
Anon2 says
I agree, but this is why shopping in person is best. On paper a 28” bike would be much too big for my 8yo (he’s below average height) but at the store he test rode a 26” and 28” and because he is an agile rider and confident on a bike, the store owner voiced his opinion that he could handle the 28”, and he can, with the seat pushed as low as it could go (we removed the reflector for now). So we got that and it should last him well into adolescence.
Anonymous says
I will have a four month maternity leave, but our daycare (where our older toddler attends) will not have a spot available for our baby until she is 6 months old. Should we (1) find a different daycare situation that will take us earlier, (2) find a temporary nanny for those 2 months, (3) try to negotiate a longer leave for me or me going back to work part-time for those two months in combo with sitters? Or something I haven’t thought of? My husband only gets 2 weeks for family leave, though I suppose he could maybe take a bit more unpaid.
Food says
Ugh, help me with something that I’m tired of feeling low-key guilty about. I have a 5, 3, and 1 year old. We eat a lot of processed food and too much added sugar. Mac and cheese, PB&J, eggo waffles. I’m not interested in any crazy diets, but I want to do better. But I’m not good at cooking (yet… I’m trying). The kids do eat tons of fruit, but hardly any vegetables. I try to incorporate things and they reject them (especially the 3 year old). For example, we will have grilled chicken salad for dinner, and give the kiddos the option of chicken tacos on a tortilla. 3 year old won’t eat the chicken or lettuce, so he’s basically eating a cheese tortilla. Which is fine, but not all the time, right?
I’ve checked out Feeding Littles and even bought their cookbook, but frankly it’s above my skill and/or effort level.
Spouse will cook (and usually does), but he sticks with the same dishes that he knows they will eat and doesn’t get worked up about any of this. That used to be my approach too, but I think it’s gone too far.
Anon says
This all sounds completely normal to me. The vast majority of kids I know under the age of 8 or so mostly subsist on bread and dairy products like mac and cheese with lots of fruit and not many veggies. My kids have very similar eating habits and our ped has no concerns. Your kids are at peak picky ages now, I think it’s likely that if you keep exposing them to more foods they will expand their horizons a bit soon and even they don’t it’s not the end of the world. So basically I’m with your DH.
Anon says
+1. Seems fine and very normal to me. Of course there are outliers, but the vast majority of my kids’ friends eat similar to this (as do mine). Keep offering fruits and veggies as much as you can, but otherwise, I wouldn’t worry to much about this.
AwayEmily says
I agree, it all sounds totally fine. Age 6 is when my kids started exiting their picky eating phase and branching out more. Just keep modeling eating other types of food and they’ll get there. I think too many people drive themselves crazy trying to get their young kids to have sophisticated palates and I’m not convinced it’s worth the effort — the vast majority of kids come around on their own eventually.
Anon says
We do a mix of stuff that’s convenient and healthy (but easy) foods. I strongly, strongly believe in everything in moderation (so soda, chips, desserts, and the like are all options on occasion).
Our rule is in order to leave the table (or get seconds of anything) you must have your age in number of bites of each thing on your plate. In order to get dessert (which we offer every night), you must finish your veg and protein.
We cook one meal for everyone, but also don’t make things we know someone hates and/or offer easy modifications (like sauce on the side). Most dinners have 1 veg, a salad or a fruit, a protein and a grain. When we do breakfast and lunch at home I try to make sure they both have a protein and a fruit and lunch also has a veg – usually just sliced veggies with ranch or hummus. So Mac and cheese or PB&J might be served with sliced fruit and veg. Frozen waffles come with some fruit.
We don’t monitor snacks too much (only when it’s close to dinner) – there’s a bin in the fridge and in the pantry with available snacks (precut fruit and veg, single serving guacamole or hummus or salsa, yogurt, cheese, crackers, goldfish, pretzels, applesauce pouches, trail mix, fruit leather, occasional chips or Tastykakes). The only rule is that if you get a second snack then it needs to be fruit or veg (which we include applesauce / guacamole/ hummus etc as).
I aim for a 5 servings of fruit and veg a day and a protein source at each meal. With these guidelines we’re ideally able to hit that. I also am fast and loose on what I count as a serving.
Anon says
so i’m in the same boat you are. i used to put more effort into cooking and exposing my kids to different foods, like even kept a list of their first 100 foods, but as they’ve gotten older and will carry on more if they don’t like what is for dinner/DH travels more for work and it’s hard to put in a lot of effort for something that everyone complains about and is only for me to eat. you cannot force food down your kids’ throat. well you could but i would not advise. i have 6 year old twins. one basically stopped eating meat or fish of any kind from age 3-5…now she will eat chicken nuggets, fish sticks and been tacos. i just keep serving and let them reject. the harder part for me is the waste. i hate feeling like i’m throwing away money/food. last night for dinner we had salmon, fish sticks, roasted potatoes, spinach, corn on the cob and homemade popsicles (basically frozen smoothies). one kid ate salmon, some corn and some popsicle. other kid ate popsicle and corn.
Anon says
i also have picky kids and one thing i’ve tried to do is use “healthier” (in quotation marks bc idk if they are actually any healthier) versions of these foods. like kodiak waffles instead of ego, whole wheat/whole grain bread, peanut butter where the only ingredient is peanuts, whole grain tortillas etc.
in college i had a friend who was one of the pickiest eaters i’ve ever known. she was a vegetarian who didn’t eat eggs, yogurt and only liked 1-2 kinds of cheese. she basically ate a lot of hummus…now she is a total foodie, who plans trips around tasting menus at michelin star restaurants with ingredients i can’t pronounce.
Anon says
+1 Trader Joe’s peanut butter is delicious and you barely notice the lack of sugar (but then you eat JIF and want to spit it out because it tastes like candy). We only buy whole wheat bread, and try to buy plain or low sugar yogurt into which we mix all the fruit they love to eat. Cereal and granola bars I buy the ones with most whole grains and lowest sugar while still being palatable. I definitely have one kid who survives on pb&J, Mac n cheese, quesadillas and cereal, but he doesn’t balk at all at the “healthier” versions
Anonymous says
Our strategy is a meal plan that involves a protein, 2 veggies and a carb at each meal. Like BBQ chicken, rice, carrots or Chicken Burgers with corn and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes on the side.
We don’t prep but we do plan so we are stocked with ingredients for the week and not digging in the pantry in a panic.
Form matters. One kid hates baby carrots but will gladly gnaw on a large whole carrot until he finishes it. Another kid loves roasted Brussell sprouts but hates the sight of tomatoes. I once threw brussel sprouts in the food processor, pan fried them with olive oil and called it ‘grass’. The kids loved asking to have ‘grass’ with dinner.
Eat what you love and share your enthusiasm. Say ‘are you all done your red peppers? Can I have the rest?’ vs just eating it after they get up. Sometimes they’ll surprise you – I made stuffed zucchini flowers on vacation last year spur of the moment assuming they would hate them but I ask each kid to take one bite. I only got to eat one because they each devoured a whole one and were asking for them all year long. We try to talk a lot about liking things in different ways. Like how both my sister and DH’s brother hate raw tomatoes but love tomato based sauces and soups.
Not everyone likes everything and what they eat now is not what they will eat for the rest of their lives. I hated olives until I was in my late 20s and now I’m obsessed.
TLDR: Keep enthusiastically offering different options and sharing your love of good food with them and it will eventually click.
Anonymous says
and we totally feed them eggos for breakfast at least twice a week! You’re doing fine!
Anon says
I feel like vacations are an underrated tool for overcoming picky eating. We took my kid to Turkey and she got so sick of eating nothing but yogurt and pita bread that she branched out and started trying new foods, some of which it turns out she actually loves.
AIMS says
What about better versions of things they already like? For example – Whole Foods has a peanut butter that is just peanuts and salt. There is a jam that my kids like (Dalfour) that is sweetened with fruit juice and only has 5 grams or so of added sugar. A PBJ of that on whole wheat or multigrain bread is nothing to feel bad about! Same with waffles – I try to upgrade to multigrain or protein waffles and top with fruit and some hazelnut spread (again, I just look for one without a ton of additives/palm oil). For chicken nuggets/strips, I just dip in egg and breadcrumbs or buy pre-breaded at our supermarket (basically nuggets that weren’t made months in advance). I wouldn’t waste too much energy on getting your kids to eat lettuce which isn’t a food most kids love and has limited nutritional value. I just tell my kids they have to have one vegetable with dinner and if they want that to be an avocado 5 nights of 7 that’s fine. Sometimes it’s just apple slices and scrambled eggs. Also fine. But sometimes you’ll be surprised w]by what they like if you just keep gently offering new things to try. My daughter who picks cheese off her pizza suddenly discovered that she will happily eat beans for dinner every other night.
As hard as it is to get started, once you have some go-tos that you can feel good about, it’s really not that difficult. I just try to buy stuff with as few ingredients as possible and that isn’t too high in added sugar or sodium. That’s it. This webs*te can be helpful to get you started: https://www.ewg.org/foodscores/
Anonymous says
I have one toddler in your younger range (2). He is very picky. I keep things very simple.
Breakfast is the same every day – oatmeal + a serving of whatever his favorite berry of the week is. In the winter, I use frozen berries.
M-F, lunch and dinner I serve him a protein, a carb and a veggie + 1-2 “exposure foods”. I meal prep the protein, carb and veggies in one go on the weekend and they are extremely simple (see below for examples). The lunch exposure food is a rotating cast of veggies (sliced raw cucumbers, peppers or tomatoes with or without some kind of dressing, steamed peas/corn/broccoli with or without a sauce; lettuce, etc.). The dinner exposure food is leftovers from whatever my husband and I have.
Saturday/Sunday lunch is the same and dinner is pizza with his veggies of choice.
My experience has been that I need to serve him something anywhere from 15-30 times before it gets added to his rotation of foods I know he will eat. That’s why the exposure foods are important to me although they are the most annoying as I have to prep them and he doesn’t eat them. At lunch right now I’m working on green veggies so it’s a rotating menu of an avocado slice, a few steamed peas and some steamed broccoli. The dinner foods are with the hope he will get acclimated to eating what we eat.
When I meal prep I do everything in one cooking appliance. This was an “oven week” and I baked turkey meatballs, sweet potato 2 ways (baked whole and cut into thin slices that crisp up), carrots (roasted, plain and with a garlic/honey sauce). The lunch protein this week is greek yogurt.
Anon says
Remember that kids aren’t adults: it’s age appropriate for small children to eat more fruits and less vegetables; their taste buds and GI systems are a little different, and they’re relying more on naturally occurring sugars. So their diet may be totally fine!
Personally I like data and find that if I’m anxious about something, it helps me to know more. So I would try plugging a a week’s intakes into Cronometer with the correct age settings. That could give you something to discuss with the pediatrician if there’s an obvious issue (like consistently only hitting 30% of some RDA because of picky eating). But I wouldn’t be willing to put a lot of effort into cooking more or changing their diets without some kind of evidence that it’s not going well.
Anon says
Meal Plan. Each week I put a piece of paper w/ the weeks meals on it. It’s super basic. Carb + protein + vegetable. Yesterday was pork tenderloin, sweet potatoes and raw veggies. Tonight is left overs, with the addition of rice, because there aren’t a ton of sweet potatoes left. Every night we basically have a tray of raw veggies on the table and everyone grazes. I make very basic food. I also ask what the kids would like to eat and try to incorporate it into the meal pan. Like, you want mac and cheese, awesome. What protein should we have with that? Black beans? Ground turkey? No one has to eat anything but no one gets anything special. We definitely incorporate desserts – cake, cookies, ice cream – and processed foods – frozen pizza! So easy, so quick. But when its part of an overall meal plan, it feels more balanced and like just part of the whole week of eating.
Anon says
I just wanted to chime in late that you are doing great! It’s great that you have started to expose them to different things even if they don’t want to try them now, they may/probably will change their minds. If I know my kid will eat the chicken and the taco, I’d put a little bit (like one slice of each veggie) of salad on his plate along with the safe foods I know he will eat. Chances are really, really good that he will eventually sample the salad items. Small changes can help rather than large scale changes. Changing entirely what food is available/made can result in everyone getting upset. For example, change the veggies in the salad. If you usually do red peppers, buy some green peppers. Also, never underestimate the power of different dips and/or food shapes.
anon says
I’m a big fan of small changes to expand palates, especially as you get out of the intense infant toddler years and maybe have a teeny bit more time and kids are more competent to help.
-I had success with dumping an entire can of pineapple, juice and all, into dishes like simple curries and stir-frys to make them more appealing at first and then slowly dialing back.
– adding some veggies like a bit of spinach to jarred pasta sauce or broccoli and carrots to mac and cheese. Kids preferred mac and cheese from a box, but are also happy with melted grated cheese and pasta.
Anonymous says
Kat, I am getting loud autoplay ads on my Mac with pop-up blocker enabled.
Anon says
Any recs for Switzerland with kids? Thinking about a trip next summer. I have one kid who’ll be 7 and is a decent hiker but is not going to be doing anything super intense or technical.
Anonymous says
No specific recommendations on hiking trails – I would pick up a book on family hiking in Switzerland. Many of the ski hills have lifts running all year so you can take the gondola up the mountain and hike a loop near the top. My kids like the spots where you can stand with one foot in Switzerland and one in Austria or Italy because that’s novel for them.
Zurich zoo is nice if you have a city day and the Lake Constance area is great if you like biking or sailing.
Anon says
there are all sorts of chocolate tours in switzerland! two instagram accounts with recent/past trips to switzerland are tidydad and theworldwidewebers
Anon says
Highly recommend Murren and the entire region— great hiking for all downhill options for kids (take funicular up the mountain and hike down). My 8,6 and 4 year old did great!